What is race?
Many people faced with this question are unable to form a proper answer. A quick google search of the definition would tell you that it’s a test of speed, so what is race?
In 1776 a German scientist named Johann Friedrich Blumenbach attempted to classify humans into categories in his book, On the Natural Variety of Mankind. This split humans into 5 different races, black, white, red, yellow and brown. Not only did this create a divide between people of different races, he also ranked the races with the white race coming out on top, which is obviously still prevalent to this day.
The fact that race was created mainly to generate a racial hierarchy, where white people got the upper hand, means that race is loosely defined and never truly accurate. For starters, race cannot be categorized accurately by tests or science. In Fatal Invention: How Science, Politics, and Big Business Re-create Race in the Twenty-first Century , Roberts describes the unnaturalness of racial classifications, stating that
“Race persists because it continues to be politically useful.”
, which, coming from an American scholar of such esteem, makes it clear that there’s is something seriously wrong with categorizing humans in this way.
As I mentioned previously, the loose definition of race, means many people have troubles with classifying themselves into one. Not only does the race of certain ethnic groups frequently change, but the categories themselves are quite vague and therefore it becomes increasingly difficult to pinpoint just one race. In the 2000 U.S. census, approximately 6.8million people reported more than one race, this increased to 9million in the 2010 U.S. census. This is a clear reflection of how aware people are becoming of the absurdities of classing ourselves in this way.
Whilst I don’t support racial ‘colourblindness’, it’s clear that both the history of race and the conditions in which it was created, makes it a careless way of dividing humans.
Race isn’t real, but racism is.
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